U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,713,808 (Gaskill) and 4,897,835 (Gaskill) show a radio pager in the form factor of a wrist watch. Such a radio pager is being commercially marketed by Seiko Telecommunication Systems, of Portland Oreg. under the trademark RECEPTOR.
The RECEPTOR pager includes a programmable computer. This computer is used to perform a variety of operations in the pager. For example U.S. Pat. No. 5,065,432 (Gaskill) shows the microprocessor and describes some of the programs performed. application Ser. No. 07/512,237 filed Apr. 18, 1990 entitled "Method and Apparatus for Accurate Time Maintenance", now abandoned shows other programs that can be executed by the microprocessor in the pager.
In the systems shown in the above references patents and patent applications and in the commercial RECEPTOR pager system, messages are sent to wristwatch pagers from a central message clearing house. The messages are sent to the wristwatch pagers using a time slot protocol of the type shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,713,808 and 4,897,835. This protocol can accommodate different types of data as shown in application Ser. No. 07/515,810 filed Apr. 27, 1990 now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 5,166,932.
In the system described in the above references, messages are sent from ordinary telephones, first to a message clearinghouse, then from the clearinghouse to radio transmitters and finally from the radio transmitters to the wristwatch pager. As shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,166,932 information can be sent to the wrist watch pagers from a computer or from ordinary telephones.